Transgender with a Suicidal Intent

Wonderful! I’ve grabbed your attention with the title. Now let’s talk.

I was reading a post on http://www.ashleighnotashley.wordpress.com about a girl who felt trapped in the body of a boy from the time she was young. To our dismay, this young person committed suicide at 16-years-old. She was teenager born as a male who renamed herself Leelah. Now let me say, before I continue, that I am talking to the Christian – in particular. All others are welcome, but this post is my change-starts-with-us post. I am not agreeing or disagreeing with the choices or lifestyles of transgender people in this post. As any life, transgender lives matter, too. What I am doing is talking to Believers about our approach.

1. Be mindful of your approach to topics surrounding sexuality. We honestly do not know why some people are born feeling like the body they live in is a mistake. I can tell you the enemy of our soul wants us to walk in mistaken identity. This is profound and should not categorized under the accuse of perversion. How cruel to call perverted what you did not create and cannot easily identify. Some actually have different chromosome counts which genetically make them one sex but the body does not match up. What do I say? God is infinitely creative. So creative that I cannot quantify His color choices, his genetic streaming, and the distance between synaptic gaps. Just because you and I read the Bible and pray every day does not mean that we have an answer for everything. Be quiet and listen. You’ll be surprised what you hear.
2. Watch what you think because your thoughts overflow to that tongue. Keep that mind pure. The only way to keep it pure is to focus on Christ, His mercy and grace for you and all of us.
3. Watch your words. When you meet a person, you are meeting him or her at that moment of his or her life. You don’t know where he or she is going and you don’t know where he or she has been. Watch what you say. You’ll be judged for each word.
4. Do not speak on God’s behalf without His permission. You can do more harm than good. He does not need anything – especially someone’s defense. Saying that God does not make mistakes can be taken in every single direction. Many people say this to live their lives however they please. Either way, God is completely other than us, not mixed with any of our materials, utmost PURE and HOLY, and NOT created in our image. His ways are not our ways.
5. Don’t assume that formal therapy is the answer. The best therapy is found in conversation where the person in need of hearing is heard and received – regardless of whatever wayward thinking he or she has. We all get off track and need to be redirected. Children and teenagers need to be heard by parents before they are sent to a person with credentials to “fix” them.
6. Pray. This is truly our first resort as God is our only recourse. If you pray from the start with an aligned heart, you will see better outcomes. Check your motives while you pray.
7. Recognize the spiritual battle over your beloved’s soul. It’s so deep we do not even recognize it. And the person you are talking to may think you are crazy for mentioning it or even seeing it. Never mind that. Having a sexual desire for a person of the same sex is one thing. But feeling trapped in a body that you feel is not your own is another dimension. Every human being is born with spiritual desires that must be cultivated from birth to death. How an individual satisfies those desires determines his or her lifestyle, which in turn affects his or her destiny. Ask God to make you appropriate to where (the transgender) he or she is spiritually so that you do not derail or hinder the will of God from being done in his or her life.
8. Let go and believe. Because we know that the battle is not ours (Believer, you know what I mean) we must believe that God is who He says He is and that there is hope. REAL HOPE that produces LASTING CHANGE. I continually learn that whatever I hold in my hands can suffocate under my control. But what I release to God is free. I’m included, you’re included. Release.
9. Don’t push our Truth on the non-believer. The Bible has not authority over a person who is self-governed. Your power is in love, forgiveness, acceptance, and quietness. Remember Jesus before Pilate. Don’t get robbed for making stupid decisions.
10. Ask if you can offer a person something before shooting off with scriptures, opinions, and suggestions. If he or she says yes, THEN speak. Gauge how much can be handled.
11. Stay away from using words like “sin” and “judgment” when speaking on his or her experiences. We all fail continually. The heterosexual is no different from the transgender or the homosexual in this regard. Don’t look at the lifestyle as a failed operation but as a search. None of us know how we will measure up that Last Day. You won’t get extra points for keeping a record of wrongs or calling out your neighbor’s shortcomings.

I can give observations or ideas for why so many transgender individuals kill themselves. At the end of the day, I do not live in those bodies, experiencing that torment. I don’t know anything beyond the fact that only an enemy of our soul would want us to kill ourselves after feeling misunderstood, misinterpreted, and mal-designed. Yet, I am called to love.

Let’s turn lives from light to darkness by modeling the Spirit and Truth that continually sets us free.